Lawyer Ivan Pavlov’s petition to access the KGB archives has been rejected

The lawyer Ivan Pavlov has reported that his petition to obtain access to the archives of the Cheka-NKVD-KGB, which had been signed by 60 thousand people, has been rejected. The response from the Commission for the Protection of State Secrets was that they did not consider it necessary to annul their decision extending the period of classification of most of the documents in the archives until 2044.

First, information about the activities of the state security apparatus between 1917 and 1991 remains significant today, and its circulation could endanger on national security.

Second, the decision to extend the period of classification does not apply to materials related to the mass repressions, as they must be accessible in accordance with Yeltsin’s decree on the declassification of legislation and other acts which served as a basis for mass repressions and violations of human rights.

Pavlov is head of "Team 29", a lawyer’s association, and has worked on cases related to state secrecy and freedom of information for over 20 years.

In the late 1990s, Pavlov defended Grigory Pasko, the journalist accused of “espionage”, and also participated in the case of Captain Aleksandr Nikitin, who was accused of “treason”. In the spring of 2015, Pavlov secured the termination of the criminal case against Svetlana Davydova, mother of a large family from Vyazma, who was unlawfully accused of “treason”.